Sweeney Todd: Alternate AlmostEnding
by Cherys
Summary: A more satisfactory conclusion to the Sweeney-Joanna storyline that is still in keeping with Tim Burton's version. I did NOT ruin it with a happily ever-after, and it is still disturbing, so don't worry about that :D One-shot. SPOILERS.


**This is based on Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd. It begins with the killing of the beggar woman and ends with him heading downstairs to the bakehouse where he will discover his wife and everything will happen exactly as it does in the movie. The only part I've changed is the almost ending in between those two points. Enjoy!**

**I don't own Sweeney Todd or anything like that. If I did, this would be the real version and not just a fanfic.**

**PS: Italics not in quotes are Sweeney's thoughts. Also, if it isn't bold and underlined, it's not me.**

The doorbell rang. He was out of time. With a snarl Sweeney lashed out at the lever, dropping the corpse of the beggar woman through the floor to the bakehouse below as the door to his shop opened.

Sweeney Todd spun to face the door, forcing a semblance of relaxation into his frame, even managing a slight smile with which he greeted the judge.

"Where is she? Where is my Joanna?"

Inside the large, sticky chest, the young girl dressed as a boy stopped breathing. Anthony's "friend" had betrayed them after all!

However, as she listened, her brow furrowed in confusion. The barber was telling the judge that she was coming, that she _wanted_ to come, even though he had no way of knowing she was there. It made no sense.

"With fellow taste in women, at least."

"What's that?" This new note in the barber's voice was so at odds with the judge's ponderings and growing happiness that he hadn't the presence of mind to sense his danger.

The madness was showing plainly on Sweeney's face, lit by the full moon reflected with hungry light off the razor in his hand. "The years no doubt have changed me, sir. But then I suppose the face of a barber, the face of a prisoner in the dark, is not particularly memorable."

Judge Turpin unwillingly turned his gaze from the blissful future to squint through the painful fog of the past at the barber's face. Sweeney waited patiently, a half-smile of anticipation haunting his lips.

Judge Turpin's eyes narrowed. "_Benjamin Barker_," he spat through clenched teeth. How could he have forgotten? The face of his hated enemy—the man who had taken his Lucy from him, even after he had transported the miserable barber halfway around the world. He started to rise from his seat.

Sweeney's arm flashed out, caressing the judge's throat with his razor, forcing him to sink slowly back into the barber's chair. A drop of blood gathered at the judge's jawline before rolling down the shining silver, eclipsing the moon's reflection. And still Sweeney's face remained unchanged—that smile possessing his face, staring out of the eyes that engulfed the judge, holding and consuming. It was those eyes more than the blade at his throat that kept Judge Turpin where he sat.

"Yes… Benjamin Barker. The man whose life you stole, not by sentencing him to slave in hell for a false charge, but by destroying his reason for existence. Destroying her so completely that she chose arsenic over their only child."

"I never meant it to end the way it did," Judge Turpin whispered.

Sweeney's eyes flamed. The half-smile twisted into a snarl. "But it did!" he spat into the judge's face, suddenly mere inches from him, pressing the razor harder and causing a rivulet of blood to stain the handle before dripping noiselessly to the floor.

The barber's eyes filled Judge Turpin's vision, revealing an abyss howling with madness born of hatred and despair. Those eyes did not belong to Benjamin Barker.

"I'm a different man now, Judge Turpin. I have you to thank for that. All their deaths are on your head you know—the deaths of the many who have fallen to my razor, and the death of my dear Lucy. You have more blood on your hands than I ever will."

"N-no." The judge's voice shook. "I'm _not_ a murderer."

Sweeney Todd leaned in still closer. "You're a murderer and a **thief**. Because when you'd taken everything from this man, even his reason for life, you took the very last treasure he had in this world. His daughter. _My_ – daughter… Joanna."

A noise in the shadows by the wall broke the silence. The two turned their heads stiffly, breaking the iron connection of their gaze. They watched the pale young man straighten and step out of the chest.

"Is it true?" demanded the high, melodic voice.

The men remained as they were—the barber's blade to the judge's throat with the blood softly dripping down the hand wielding the razor—silently watching.

Joanna's eyes grew wide and her breath caught. Hiding in the box as she had been, she hadn't been able to see the scene of vengeance unfolding, but had only been able to hear her past being spoken of between two men who hated each other.

Trying to control her trembling, Joanna spoke again, this time to the judge. "Please, tell me it's not true… Tell me that he's insane, that he's lying…" She choked, trembling so hard she could barely stand. Tears began to slide down her cheeks.

"Oh, God… Joanna…" Judge Turpin's face drained of the blood summoned by his anger as hate turned to horror. "My dove, how did you…?" He rose, not noticing that the barber had dropped the razor from his throat, seeing only his Joanna. "Joanna…" He stepped towards her.

"No!" She screamed, scrambling away from him. "Tell me he's lying! Tell me that you didn't kill my mother, that he's not my father! Tell me!"

Turpin lurched after her, face twisted in anguish. "Joanna, _I'm_ your father! _Please!_"

Sweeney Todd fell to his knees, waves upon waves of emotion breaking over him, drowning him.

_She saw. Saw me with blood on my hands and a knife to his throat._

_ She doesn't want me. She's in pain because of me. Because she's mine and not _his_._

_ She's beautiful. Exactly like her mother._

Joanna couldn't see, couldn't hear. Her head was filled with a roaring noise and tears obscured her vision, flying off her cheeks as she shook her head and screamed.

"No! You're lying. You're lying! Murderer! _Murderer_!"

Judge Turpin lunged forward and landed a blow across her face that sent her sprawling into the moonlight in the center of the room.

"I am your _father!_ As such you will treat me with respect and will _never _again imply that such a foul word applies to me. _Am. I. Clear?_"

Without waiting for a response the judge grabbed his errant ward by the hair and wrenched her to her feet.

"Obviously you didn't learn your lesson well enough last time, and stricter measures are called for. I'm going to lock you away for however many years it takes!"

As the judge began to yank her mercilessly to the door, she shrieked with all her fear and desperation, "ANTHONY!"

"You _will not touch her!_"

Suddenly the judge's hand released her and she whirled to see a falling figure lit by red moonlight. Behind the figure stood another, haloed by the red mist floating in the air around him His raised blade shone its reflected moon upon his face, lighting the unremorseful tears of blood not his own.

Sweeney lowered the razor as it dripped its rubies to join their sisters on the floor. He folded it lovingly back into itself, murmuring, "Rest now, my friend."

He raised his head to watch the child. His Joanna, come back to him at last. He walked slowly forward, the world around him frozen—nothing stirring, not even her.

Sweeney Todd's heart cracked, allowing emotions he hadn't felt for almost fifteen years to seep through. Tenderness. Love. True love, not the mockery of the emotion he'd been directing towards his killing tools. It was Benjamin Barker's love.

He was right in front of her now. She stood there, frightened, wanting to run but unable to escape her own mind.

"So beautiful. Just like your mother."

The man who was almost Benjamin after so long reached forward hesitantly, wanting more than anything to embrace his daughter for the first time in fifteen years, but for some reason afraid. His fingers landed softly on her cheek. He stroked it gently, so gently; as if his touch could burn the fragile skin. Even with such an intense sense of foreboding however, Benjamin was the happiest he'd been since that fateful day all those years ago. He'd finally come home again.

Still she watched with her wide-eyed stare, unresponsive to his hesitant caress. She watched with fear in her eyes still, still! Why?

His eyes were drawn to the stain of color on her white, drawn face. Ribbons of red, leading up the cheek to the fingers at the end, painted in the unholy color. Staring past them, his eyes met those of the apparition in the mirror and he recoiled from them—from the hideous truth portrayed in the glass.

Sweeney Todd stepped away and turned to the window, hiding his red-streaked face from the perfect being he had already stained far past redemption. She would see the ribbons of blood on her cheek for the rest of her life, and there was nothing he could do to undo the harm his one moment of happiness had caused.

Not turning, not allowing himself to inflict his gaze upon her, he spoke to her. "Leave now. The young sailor is no doubt waiting for you."

When no sound came from behind him, Sweeney spoke again. "Go. I won't stop you. I give you my word that I'll never touch you again, though I don't know how much my word can mean to you." He paused a moment. Then, quietly, "You deserve so much more than that from me, but it's all I can give without hurting you, so it's all I will give."

Sound behind him now. A light, hesitant tread coming _toward _him, away from the door. Then a touch on his cheek, as soft as a butterfly's wing. Sweeney Todd closed his eyes and leaned ever so slightly into the touch, feeling warmth the likes of which he'd thought he'd never feel again.

Then it was gone, and the footsteps ran quickly out the door—away from him forever.

The barber stood there for a very long time, staring unseeing at the moon through the red-spattered glass as the blood hardened into a mask on its maker's face. A single, solitary tear appeared, burning a track through the mask until it dropped to the floor and was swallowed into nothingness. It was the first, and only, in the life of Sweeney Todd.

The moon shone down on the quiet rooftops. Below was the darkness of the forsaken city of London which blighted the world like a great black pit and is filled with people who are filled with shit and the vermin of the world inhabit it!—

_But not for long…_

The work was waiting. The blood, the corpse, the boy in the bakehouse—

Sweeney turned from the window, the smile cracking his mask and the razor shining redly in his eyes. The demon barber strode out of his shop and surveyed his hunting grounds. The streets were burning in his eyes as he swept down the stairs towards the doomed below.

_Finished! How about a shave?_


End file.
